Megan Dooley: Burnin' Love (M/F twice & unabridged

After tennis, she’d come home to pack a few boxes, hop in the shower around 12:30, then take the back streets through the suburbs to avoid the Saturday mall traffic.

Max was usually out in the garden with a pitcher of iced tea and a plate of sandwiches (“Hi! Hungry?); if not, she’d let herself in and begin unwrapping dishes or stowing sweaters in the armoire.

With the snow gone, commuting downtown was easier. She spent more and more time away from the city now, stretching the weekends to Monday morning and bringing a change of clothes for midweek sleepovers.

The Wednesday after Memorial Day, she found the hairbrushes on a shelf in the walk-in closet as she was getting ready for bed.

“What are these, Max?”

“What do you think?”

“I mean – why do you have them?”

“Come to bed, Megan. You know why.”

“Oh.”

She ran a finger across the soft bristles and took a deep breath.

“I see.”

Max beckoned her with raised eyebrows and a curled index finger.

In his spanking stories, the gesture always meant that the self-absorbed spendthrift or over-indulged gossip was in for a horizontal hoedown.

“I was just looking,” Megan mewled.

God! She sounded just like any number of those irresponsible brats being led to the sofa for a bare-bottom barbecue.

I was just… It was just… Let me explain…

“Megan. Come here.”

“I’ll put it back.”

“Now.”

“Yes, Max.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, sure that he would ask for the hairbrush. He had that look.

“What were you thinking, Megan?”

“I’m sorry, Max.”

In the stories, defiance never worked. It was always better to cooperate, show remorse, hope for a plea bargain.

“You still deserve to be punished.”

“I know.”

If she slithered out of her jeans promptly, her husband might allow her to keep her panties on for the scolding. If she placed herself reluctantly but willingly across his lap – all by herself with her bottom up high and her feet off the floor – he might even start at a moderate tempo. And sometimes – if she managed to convey sincere regret, honest insight, believable promises – he would spare her the usual eye-popping hairbrush finale, an “1812 Overture” of crackling aftward fireworks.

And so Megan said, “Yes, Max. I’m sorry, Max.”

Perhaps when he told her to stand and lift her nightgown and hold the hem at her waist, he would simply ask what would happen if she’d done this after the wedding.

“What if we were married now, Megan? Then what?”

“I’d get a spanking,” she’d pout.

“Do you want a spanking?”

“No.”

Perhaps if he pulled her forward by the elbow, he’d just give her a good talking-to. Put a good scare into her.

“It isn’t polite to go sneaking around through other people’s things, Meg.”

“I know.”

“And what happens to young ladies who forget their manners?”

“They get punished.”

“Punished. How do they get punished?”

“A spanking. And maybe other stuff.”

When he peeled back her panties – just to the tops of her thighs – perhaps he’d consider that she was already on the verge of tears and that she was very frightened and that in all her thirty-nine years she’d never been spanked before.

Never ever.

But soon enough.

“I won’t do it again, Max. I promise.”

“I mean what were you thinking. What went through your head when you saw those hairbrushes?”

“Oh. Um…”

“Were you surprised?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was…” She cradled the flat brush head in the palm of her left hand, imagining the stern posture the prom queen might face after letting her boozy date finger-fuck her at four in the morning.

“I guess I was thinking… I guess I was thinking the wedding’s only three months away, and after that…”

“Yes?”

“I love you so much, Max. I’m just…”

“Just what, Megan?”

She licked her lips for saliva that would not come, as though she were swallowing sand.

“I”m… I’m still learning.”

“Yes you are, sweetie.”

“I’ll be good, Max. You won’t have to spank me. I’ll be so good.”

“I know, Megan. Relax.”

“So… why are they here?”

“I thought you ought to get used to having them around.”

“Oh.”

“Come on, sweetie.” He patted the mattress benignly.

“Okay.”

She replaced the beautifully-made instrument meant one day to punish some unimaginable transgression with agonizing efficiency.

Whack! Whack!

“Ow! Yes! A-a-ah!! I will!”

WHACK! WHACK!

“O-W-W-W-W-w-w-w-w! I promise!”

Megan stepped out of her panties and slipped between the covers, snuggling close against his chest.

“Do you love me, Max?”

Kind words and a soft kiss calmed her.

The saliva came back to her pretty round mouth, and soon she knelt between his legs to tend to pleasanter matters.

-0-

Half-dressed as Max showered the next morning, Megan again fondled the fearsome brushes with an equal mix of curiosity and loathing.

Did it really hurt as much as … ? They’re just stories, right?

Right?

Her own hairbrush was a lightweight narrow drugstore number with a stubby plastic handle and stiff nylon bristles.

Here were two handsome broad ovals of oil-rubbed hardwood, heirlooms to smooth the long hair of generations of smiling young daughters.

She chose the birds-eye maple, raised it tentatively from the elbow – once, twice – judging its heft. Her eyes followed the polished fingernails wrapped about the handle as she swished it about.

She brought the brush back as if to swat a puppy with a rolled magazine, then smacked it down hard against her palm.

Ow!

She shook the sting from her hand.

“I’d better put this back,” she thought, but now her mouth was dry and her thumbs were in the waistband of her satin Thursday panties.

With a wiggle, she loosed the yielding slopes of her snowy backside, watched the frilly low-cuts slide softly to a naughty-girl heap at her ankles.

“I’ve heard just about enough out of you, young lady.”

“What are you doing? Let me go!”

Hobbled by jeans yanked halfway down her schoolgirl soccer thighs, she toppled unwillingly across his lap.

“No-o-o! Don’t! I can explain…”

Smack!

Megan’s eyes popped open. Oh, God! She examined the pink oval imprint in the mirror, then passed the brush to her left hand for a matching tattoo.

“It was just a practical joke….”

She swung as hard as she dared.

Smack!

Aa-a-h! God, it DOES hurt!

That’s enough. Stop it.

Okay – two more. Then I’ll put it back.

“That’s not a toy, Megan.”

It was Max, wrapped in a bath sheet, leaning against the door jamb.

“Oh! Oh, God! Max! Don’t sneak up on me like that…”

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Well, I…”

“Hm-m-m?”

“Um…”

“Turn around, Megan.”

She shook a foot to free herself from the jumbled panties.

“No. Leave them on.”

She kneeled in place, pulled the waistband past her toes, and stepped back into her flimsy ankle cuffs.

“Now turn around.”

She turned with six baby ballerina steps.

He took the hairbrush from her and stepped back. “Now touch your knees.”

Mortified at being made to display her amateur handiwork, her pastel Easter eggs crayoned on the dining room wall, Megan did as she was told.

“Looks like someone’s been naughty.”

Through the neckline of her ivory camisole, Megan watched the nervous rise and fall of her trussed-up cleavage.

Holding her weight awkwardly against one knee, Megan slapped herself again and again.

“Harder.”

“I’m trying.”

Smack. “Un-n-nh.” Smack. “Ah!”

Crisper. Sharper!

Smack. Smack!

“Better. How do you like that?”

“A-h-h! I don’t.”

“Keep going.”

Smack! Smack!

Crisp! Sharp!

“I’ll be late for work.”

“You should have thought of that. Let’s go. Hard as you can.”

Smack! Smack!

After two dozen more, he had her do the left cheek.

“Faster!”

“Ow!”

“There. Two nice pink circles. Stand up, Megan.”

“Ow.”

“Now turn around.”

She reversed the six little ballerina steps.

He beckoned her toward the bed with the raised eyebrows and the curling index finger.

“No more, Max…”

“Come on.”

She shook her foot and stepped free of the tangled panties.

“Don’t make me come over there.”

Two halting steps.

“Now, Megan.” He pointed to his lap.

“Yes, Max.”

She slumped across the room to his right.

“Well?” Two light hairbrush taps.

“I don’t want a spanking, Max.”

“I thought you did.”

“No. I’m afraid.”

“Afraid, Megan?”

“Spankings hurt.”

“Yes, they do. Spankings hurt, and naughty girls get spanked.”

Megan fidgeted, confronting the demon that had owned her soul for thirty years of midnight masturbations.

“Don’t they?”

“I’m not a girl.”

“Bend forward, Megan. Palms out.”

“Max…”

“Now.”

“Don’t. I’ve learned my… NO!”

In a moment, she was off her feet, face-down into the comforter, pinned to his belly.

He pushed her forward from below.

“Un-nh.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Spankings aren’t sexy, Megan.” To illustrate the point, he pushed his middle finger up between her closed thighs and stroked the dry flesh guarding her puckered pussy.

“Do you feel sexy?”

She whimpered like a puppy made to smell its misplaced excrement.

“No.”

“Is spanking sexy?”

“No. You’re hurting me.”

“Do you want a spanking right now, Megan?”

“No.”

He let her go.

“Go put it back, Megan.”

“What?”

“Put the hairbrush back in the closet, Meg. And don’t touch it again unless I ask you to bring it to me.”

“Oh.” She opened her eyes.

“Go on. Put it back.”

“Yes, Max.”

“And get dressed.”

“Yes. Thank you. I’m sorry.”

-0-

“Yes, Megan. I have a hairbrush.”

When she leaned the top of her head against the cool plaster wall, she could see the hem of the pink bathrobe pooled at her feet.

Three months married, Megan Dooley trembled – spanked and stripped in Time Out Corner.

She’d passed the time remembering sweet sunny smiles on warm sunny days, walks in the woods with the charming horny gentlemen she had dated over the years.

A country concert, a butterscotch sundae.

A kiss on the doorstep and maybe another.

The lucky ones tasted the butterscotch nectar that sweetened the lips of her warm pouty pussy. They entered her gently and whispered “I love you” and left in the morning with lingering kisses.

Nothing too serious.

I know, Dad. I just haven’t met the right guy.

“Who are you looking for? Mr. Perfect.”

“Well, yeah.”

“What happened with that real estate broker you were seeing? He seemed nice enough.”

“Maybe too nice.” He’d dumped her. “And it was insurance.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

The singles cruise to the Mexican resort had been her only real extravagance. Perhaps Mr. Perfect would compliment her form after secretly admiring her tennis skirt.

“Nice backhand.” He would mean “nice backside”, of course, but she would return the smile.

Sometimes when she felt lonely in her queen-size bed, Mr. Perfect would become cross with her after a day of scuba-diving in the Caribbean, jealous when she flirted with the golf pro, sullen when she discreetly removed his hand from her tush toward the end of a slow, tense tango.

“What’s the matter, honey? You seem out of sorts.”

Back at the hotel, she was fixing her hair before cocktails. “Is something wrong, Brad?”

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong.”

She’d done this before.

“Done what?”

She’d embarrassed him once too often.

“Oh, don’t be silly.”

He’d had it.

“You’re scaring me.”

Sometimes she finished when he told her icily that someone should have warmed her bottom a long time ago.

Sometimes it lasted until he took her by the arm – or tossed her over his shoulder – and headed purposefully toward the bed.

“Put me down. What do you think you’re doing?”

Occasionally, she allowed herself the guilty pleasure of a good talking-to and a dozen firm alternating slaps to the seat of her evening dress.

“Ow! You’re hurting me.”

When she was done, Megan would wrap herself in the pink bathrobe and rinse the musky funk from her fingers.

-0-

“Why?”

“I think you know why, Megan.”

“But … I thought a hairbrush was for really bad stuff.”

“Like backing the car into a tree when you’re nine years old.”

“Yeah.”

“How about raising your voice to me?”

“You already spanked me for that. Look at my poor butt!”

She peeked over her shoulder. He looked just the way he had that day three years before in his office.

The unexpected demand that felt like criticism.

“That’s not enough.”

A reprimand.

“You look like you’re going to punish me.”

Don’t punish me.

“We don’t punish people.”

“Well, you still looked like you were ready to spank me.”

I’ve been bad, Max. Take me over your knee. Pull down my pants. NO! Not a hairbrush NO! Ow! I’ll be a good girl Ow! Ow! I’m sorry. STOP! OW!

-0-

“That’s enough from you, young lady.”

“Huh?”

It was Max, his hand cupping her triceps, squeezing the bone, leading her from the corner.

“Come, Megan.”

“Max, I won’t do it again.”

“Won’t do what again?”

“Raise my voice to you. I’m so sorry.”

She was still deep-down muscle-sore from the echoing thunderclaps that had left her blubbering pre-dawn apologies and clutching her beestung backside.

Halfway across the geometric tribal rug, she recoiled.

“I love you so much, Max. I know better. Please?”

Her request trailed upward and out as Max sat, impelling her forward. Megan teetered on her toes, then toppled into position with a squeal.

He took her immediately, a hand slipped between her waving legs, the two middle fingers straddling her vulva, his thumb at the rim of her anus. He nudged his bride to a stable resting place, arched helplessly across his lap.

How many girls have you done this to, Max?

He was wearing cargo shorts that August midnight she’d offered herself up, and earlier this morning, of course, he’d simply held her against the mattress.

Now she noted the suit pants: ultra-fine sandpaper polishing her chest as she slithered across the creased Italian wool.

She wished that she too were in office wear – perhaps a dark tailored jacket over a lavender silk shell, an understated strand of small pearls dangling against her chin, gabardine slacks at her ankles, matte black panty hose peeled back and bunched at her knees – all of this framing a lickable double-scoop Dairy Q
ueen backside. She would peek across her shoulder to accept the silent compliment of his admiring pause.

“Up, Megan.”

Max squeezed his fingers to coax her hips upward, then reached ’round her waist to hold her firmly in place. He eyed the creases at the base of her school-spirit cheeks.

“Yes, my butt would be up a bit,” she thought.

You were late again, Megan. You’re falling behind, Megan.

Can’t have that, can we? No, sir.

I expect better. Yes, sir.

What sort of training?

Why wouldn’t I care for it?

No, I’ve never been…

What are you doing?

Megan closed her eyes to summon one last look at the gauzy office hairbrushing she’d imagined and reimagined in dozens of daydreams and undulating late-night jerkoffs.

Max noticed the dew when he drew his fingers from the warmth of her crotch. He dawdled momentarily along the puffy moist folds of the soft-shell scallop he could part with a whisper.

Can’t I wear the suit? Let me get dressed first, put on some makeup.

Feel pretty.

He reached into his suit coat for the oil-rubbed cherry hairbrush he’d purchased after the irises bloomed.

Do you really have a hairbrush?

Which one?

I’m scared, Max.

I’m sorry, Max.

-0-

“I’m not at all happy with your behavior this morning, Meg.”

Words for a twelve-year-old reeking of cigarettes.

A tattletale caught in a brazen slander.

A sullen trollop who’d flounced to the door with a troubling report card. A note from the teacher.

Leave me alone. What if I don’t want to go to college? It’s my life!

What are you doing? Put me down! Daddy! No! I’m too old for a spanking.

I’m not at all happy.

Ow! OW!

-0-

She faced her horizontal image in the hallway mirror, much too old to be getting a spanking, a taste of the hairbrush, a bare bottom spanking.

The polished gold band he’d placed forever on her finger said she was too old. Too old to be spanked like a defiant teenager.

The rigid chilled nipples dangling in the rich brown halos of her inverted breasts surely proved she had outgrown this. Too old to be taken across a knee. Spanked with a hairbrush. Punished to tears.

See?

I’m too old for a spanking. The hairbrush. A bare bottom spanking.

A close-set pair of pink Minnie Mouse ears rose and set behind a tousled horizon of strawberry hair.

“I know. Please. I’ll be more careful.”

She shifted about, testing his grip.

“Uh-huh. With your temper?”

“Yes. With my temper.”

“That’s what you said about four hours ago.”

“Max….” She swallowed. “Please. I understand.”

The cool touch of hardwood on her tender peaks drew a gasp. Breathing now in cowering snuffles, she watched the reflected punishment scene with growing apprehension as he drew ominous circles on her soft swaying mounds.

“Do you feel sexy now?”

“No.”

“Do you see yourself in the mirror?”

“Yes.”

Now the hairbrush traced broad lazy spirals, grazing her thighs and looping inward over the tender tennis-firmed cheeks.

“Take a good look, Megan. Are you ashamed of yourself?”

“Yes.”

“You should be. Just look at you. A grown woman!”

“I’m sorry.”

He laid the hairbrush lengthwise against her pussy.

“Shame on you.”

She winced.

“I’ve decided to get serious about this before one bad step leads to another. You may think your little outbursts this morning were no big deal – misunderstandings – but twice is a pattern. Patterns become habits, and habits get out of hand…

“You are my wife, Megan. Remember? You’ve had plenty of time to learn the rules and get adjusted to not living alone…

“No more warnings. From now on, you will behave lovingly at all times…

“Love, honor, and obey…

“When you do not, you will be punished – just as those women in all of those stories you’ve been enjoying were punished. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“When you misbehave, you will be put in the corner with your bottom bared. You will be taken across my knee. And you will be spanked with a hairbrush until I am satisfied that the problem will not recur.”

“Yes, Max. It won’t happen Ow! Oh, God. OW! No-o-o! No. No!”

“You are not to raise your voice to me, Megan.”

“OW-W-W!” She caught some breath.

“Ah! Ah! Ow!”

CRACK! “A-A-A-a-a-ow-w-w!”

“Is that clear?”

“Yes.” CRACK!

“OW!! Oh. OW!!!”

Max delivered a pastoral Catholic sermon on love and harmony as her bouncing cheeks were flattened in turn.

Her toes flew off the rug, first in spastic leaps, then in opposite staccato rhythm to the endless march of popping cherry bombs.

Whack! Whack!

“Stop! AH!”

WHACK! WHACK!

“Yes. Oh, God! OW-W-W-W! I will. Ah! Ah! Please…”

Swaying helplessly from side to side beneath harsh hairbrush kisses, Megan blurted desperate pleas for mercy, impotent monosyllables of appeasement sprinkled among the agonized yelps.

CRACK! CRACK!

Tears blurred her vision, slalomed down her cheeks, dripped from the cleft of her quavering chin.

CRACK! CRACK!

Her feet pumped frantically at the ceiling as Max began an overlapping descent of her left thigh.

CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK

Now a matching eight up the right thigh.

An alternating dozen torched the base of her swollen cheeks.

Megan capitulated, bawling uncontrollably in the bleak late autumn.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

When she realized he had finished, she tentatively lowered her feet to half-mast – “O-h-h-h-h. Ow-ww-w!” – and then to the floor.

-0-

When she had calmed, Max helped her up and asked if she understood why she had been punished.

Megan buried her face against his shoulder.

“Yes, Max.”

She accepted his handkerchief, wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and shook in his arms for a long long time.

He carried her upstairs like a load of clean laundry and laid her face-down on the bed.

And after a while, he unzipped his pants.

He approached on his knees, he lifted her hips.

He parted her, slipped inside, fucking her lovingly.

After forty moaning minutes, Megan licked their mingled juices from the drooping head of his spent cock.

When he tucked her into bed, she spread the salty elixir about with her tongue and drifted to sleep with sweet sticky lips.

Max nearly missed his ten o’clock meeting.

-0-

At dinner, Megan asked if she could request a timeout when she had bad thoughts.

“Like what, Meg?”

“Well, like the kind that made me raise my voice.”

“Nothing makes you raise your voice, Meg. You choose to.”

She squirmed in her chair. The Advils and Chianti hadn’t helped much.

“Yes, Max. It really won’t happen ever again. It’s just…”

“What, sweetie?”

“I just thought it might help, that’s all. But I won’t if you think that a timeout would be just the same as raising my voice or…”

“Or what?”

“If… If a timeout meant I still had a temper and I still might be … unpleasant … then …”

“Okay, sure. Let’s try it. Maybe it’s a good idea.”

“You wouldn’t…”

“I wouldn’t spank you for taking a timeout.”

“Okay. Good. Thank you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too, Max.”

When she limped over to clear his plate, Max reached up and kissed her cheek.

“I’m sorry this had to happen so close to Sunday, Meg.”

She looked into his eyes and held his gaze for a lifetime.

“Yes, Max. I know. A reminder every three months. I’ll get some sherry.”

-0-

Sunday after church, Megan went on in the car about Mr. Batchelder (“He was my teacher in sixth grade. Can you believe it?”) and his four grandchildren (“T
hey were so cute, don’t you think?”), all dressed up in matching blue jackets and gray slacks or skirts (“And those outfits! Weren’t they precious?”).

Megan was always energized to cheerful rhetorical questions after Mass – a bit full of Jesus for Max’s taste, but that was Megan: wholesome and good for you.

“Yeah, Megan, they were cute. What’s with you?”

“Nothing. I’m just happy. Maybe it’s the holidays. Don’t be an old poop.”

She flashed her tongue in mock disrespect and settled into the warmth of her camel-hair coat. “Okay?”

“Okay, Meg. Happy holidays.”

“Happy holidays to you, too, Ebeneezer. Oh! What are you gonna get me?”

“Huh?”

“For Christmas! It’s our first Christmas!”

“Well, I don’t know. Have you been a good little girl?”

“Oh, yes, Santa, I’ve been very good.”

“Hm-m-m.. That’s not what it says here on my list.”

“Oh, that was just once, Santa.”

“Once?”

“Well, twice. But I’ve been very good the whole rest of the year.”

She pulled the brim of her floppy hat down over her eyes, and even Max had to laugh at her Annie Hall grin.

“So?”

“What?”

“Can I have a pony?”

-0-

“You need anything, Max?”

“Nah. I’m good.”

“I’m gonna change.”

“Whatever.”

Megan appeared in the den five minutes later, braless and busty in a lime Polo pullover, bulky white workout socks, and her favorite loose denims she’d worn through at the knees.

She finished gathering her hair into an oversized tortoise-shell clip. “Whatcha doin’?”

Max looked up from the desk. “Just paying a few bills.”

“The usual?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, that sounds fun. The game’s not on?”

“No, it’s a 3:00 start; they’re in Seattle. No shoes?”

“What for?”

“Huh?”

“You ready?”

“Oh! Yeah, that. Okay…”

“You said after church…”

“Right. I did.”

“In here or upstairs?”

“Here’s fine.” He motioned toward the burgundy leather ottoman at the foot of the matching club chair.

She took a long drink from Max’s tea mug. “Ew-w-w. I forgot you use lemon.”

“I’m gonna wash my hands. Wait for me.”

“Okay. I’d better take these out.” She pulled down an eyelid and blinked over a cupped hand.

When she was done, Megan went to the corner by the club chair Max used for reviewing thirty-page contracts and listening to Schubert. She made him close the door for the vocal pieces – songs, he called them – but she had grown accustomed to much of the chamber music.

“What’s this?”

“Death and the Maiden.”

She’d go off with her iPod and disappear with Randy or Kenny or Garth – ten-gallon cowboys with three-minute homilies.

Megan popped the metal button of her well-worn Lady Wranglers and undid the zipper. With one motion, she lowered the faded denim and the Jockey bikinis to her knees.

“Death and the Maiden. Figures.”

When she waddled nose-first into the corner, the jeans slumped to mid-calf.

Max returned in three minutes and took a seat on the ottoman.

“Ready?”

“Uh-huh.”

“No. Back in the corner. This starts with a little discussion.”

Megan’s eyes were fixed on the bird’s-eye maple stinger she’d flirted with six months before. “Max…”

“Oh, this? I thought you’d be interested. Now back in the corner, Meg.”

“Yes, Max.” She sighed and touched her nose to the off-yellow plaster..

“This is your first reminder, Meg. Every three months.”

She shifted uneasily, aware again of the lingering itch down the backs of her thighs and the pervasive, deep ache in her hairbrushed bottom.

“Yes, Max.”

“What do I want to remind you of?”

“That spankings hurt.”

“Yes. Spankings hurt, don’t they?”

“Yes.” Megan pouted and absentmindedly scritched the crease below one of her purplish splotches. “They hurt a lot.”

“Do you like getting spanked?”

“No.”

“This is an inoculation, like a booster shot. It stings. No, it hurts. But it’s much much better than getting the disease.”

“Okay.”

“If you get the disease, the cure is much worse.”

“Like Friday.”

“Like Friday. And sometimes, diseases can’t be cured.”

Megan was silent.

“I want to love you forever, Megan.”

“I know.” She sniffled. “I love you, too.”

“So… Are we clear on this?”

“Are you gonna use the hairbrush?”

“Ah! Thank you. Should I?”

“I hope not.”

“Please come here, Megan.”

She sucked in two nervous hiccups – “Yes, Max” – and waddled forlornly to the right side of the ottoman.

Spankings aren’t sexy.

Still, he kissed her matted triangle of auburn pubic hair.

Inhaled her sweet musk.

Parted her lips with the tip of his tongue and tasted the butterscotch syrup inside.

Megan shuddered.

Spankings aren’t sexy.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Down you go.”

Max took her wrist. She hovered for a moment, bent toward him, followed his gentle lead.

“Forward a little?”

She slithered up, happy that he trusted her. “How’s that?”

“There. That’s good.” He cinched her hip tight.

Hands to the floor, Megan watched the merry kaleidoscope sparkling in the diamond she would wear forever.

Above the faded blue jumble of her lowered farm-girl jeans, below the waning red blush of her upturned milkmaid bottom, a dewy flushed pink bijou gleamed in the lamplight.